Although the Maryland-based hotelier has 605 properties spread across more than 70 countries outside the U.S., sub-Saharan Africa has remained Marriott-free. That will change soon. Marriott plans to open a hotel in the Rwandan capital of Kigali late next year.

The company has at least eight more properties planned for south of the Sahara over five years, targeting fast-growing economies such as Ghana and Ethiopia.

Marriott wants to fill a massive space on its global expansion map: Africa. Marriott plans to roll out a hotel in Kigali, the capital of Rwanda, late next year and open at least eight more in the region over five years. Patrick McGroarty has details on The News Hub. Photo: Marriott.

Most of Africa "is a bit of a blank piece of paper for the hospitality industry," says
Alex Kyriakidis,
chief of Marriott's Middle East and Africa division.

The chain is joining competitors racing to expand in the region, including Hilton Worldwide Inc. and Carlson Rezidor Hotel Group, owner of the Radisson Blu brand.

Crowds of business travelers are flocking to Africa thanks to rich stores of minerals, oil and natural gas. As the economies of Europe and the U.S. falter, growth in sub-Saharan Africa is expected to reach 5.4% this year, higher than any region except developing Asia, according to the International Monetary Fund. And on a continent burdened with rutted roads and dilapidated railways, airlines are starting to offer direct flights between African cities, instead of through Europe. Air travel in Africa is up 9.8% this year, outpacing global growth of 6.8%, according to the International Air Transport Association trade group.

"There's a disconnect between the facilities available to people and the demand for them," says
Ian Goldin,
a professor of globalization and development at the University of Oxford in England.

Marquee brands can use that disconnect, charging a premium for comfort in poor, isolated African markets. A business traveler used to paying $150 a night in the U.S. or Europe can pay $300 or more for the same level of service in some African cities, says
Philippe Doizelet,
general manager at Horwath HTL, a hospitality consulting firm. "The more underdeveloped a country is, the more you can expect people to pay."

Poor infrastructure and Byzantine customs procedures are partly to blame for the gap between supply and demand.

That isn't deterring international hoteliers, though. South African, Chinese and Indian hotels are in Africa's biggest cities, catering to visitors familiar with their home-market brands. South Africa's Protea Hospitality Group plans to add nine hotels by 2014 to its 36 African properties outside its home market. Overall, international chains are planning 208 new hotels across Africa, according to W Hospitality Group, a research company, up from 159 in development last year.

In the past, the world's best-known hotel companies confined their Africa presence mostly to popular tourist destinations such as Egypt and South Africa.

Some of Marriott's competitors, such as Sheraton and Hilton, have had light presences in sub-Saharan Africa for decades but now are stepping up growth. Hilton has had a franchise in Ethiopia since 1969, while
Starwood Hotels and Resorts Worldwide
Inc.
's Sheraton has been in Lagos, Nigeria, since 1985. France's
Accor
SA,
owner of brands including Sofitel and Mercure, has 26 hotels in 14 countries on the continent outside of North Africa and South Africa.

"We did a lot of work 30 to 40 years ago, but now we see this as a second phase of growth," says
Patrick Fitzgibbon,
who leads Africa development for Hilton.

Like most U.S. hotel companies, Marriott is relying on local developers rather than investing its own funds in Africa. In Rwanda, the developer is
Billy Cheung Yiu Tung.
When the 44-year-old businessman from Hong Kong visited Kigali in 2008 for his construction and real-estate business, every hotel was sold out. He ended up paying $185 for a room in a run-down guesthouse.

ENLARGE

The next day, he told Rwanda's finance minister he wanted to build a hotel. The minister called Kigali's mayor, who showed Mr. Cheung potential building sites.

The following day, he had an investment certificate and a bank account and had made a deposit on a plot across from China's embassy.

"We're getting more aggressive in terms of going to look for investors and making it easier for them," says
Vivian Kayitesi,
of the Rwanda Development Board.

Rwanda has made impressive gains since 800,000 people, about a one-tenth of its population at the time, were killed in a 1994 frenzy of ethnic violence. One of the country's few international hotels then, the Sabena Hotel des Mille Collines in Kigali, became a sanctuary that was made famous in the movie "Hotel Rwanda."

Rwanda's economy has grown nearly 8% a year since 2004. President Paul Kagame is courting foreign companies in an effort to turn the tiny, landlocked equatorial country into an African Singapore, a commercial hub for the region.

But Rwanda has presented hurdles, including engineering problems and other construction delays, since Marriott agreed in 2009 to build a 254-room hotel valued at $70 million.

A container of construction materials that cost about $2,000 to move from China to Kenya, would set Marriott back another $6,000 to have it driven 900 miles from Kenya to Kigali, Mr. Cheung says.

The Bethesda-based company also has strained to find experienced staff. Marriott responded by contracting with the Akilah Institute for Women, a Kigali business school, to train 18 women.

Marriott hasn't been alone in experiencing delays.

Carlson Rezidor's Radisson Blu Rwanda hotel has been under construction for three years and is about a year behind schedule, says
Andrew McLachlan,
the company's head of development in Africa. Carlson Rezidor opened a hotel in Lagos last year that took six years to build. The property now is among the company's 10 highest-earning hotels in Europe, the Mideast and Africa, he says, with room rates of $350 a night.

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